Best of 2025: Albanese meets with Trump next week. Anything could happen

We’re on a break over summer, our dear chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal is probably off to a yoga retreat somewhere in Bali, and we return at the end of January for another fun-filled year of Inside Politics. Well, we can’t ignore the impact that Donald Trump had on domestic politics last…

Best of 2025:  Is Dezi Freeman being glorified like the other 'daring, desperate or deranged' fugitives who came before him?

Hi, it’s Samantha Selinger-Morris here, and I’m the host of The Morning Edition. We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns on Monday. In August, two police officers were shot and killed at a property in Victoria’s high country and suspected murderer, Dez…

Best of 2025: Women were once ‘essential’ to the Liberal Party. What happened?

We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns next week. Last May, the incumbent Labor government swept to power while the Liberal Party suffered an election wipeout, with women voters, in particular, shunning the party. In this episode, recorded just after…

Best of 2025: What is freebirthing?

Hi, it’s Samantha Selinger-Morris here, and I’m the host of The Morning Edition. We’re bringing you the best episodes of 2025 before your Morning Edition team returns next week. With the tragic death of a wellness influencer after the birth of her child at home in Melbourne, the practice of freebi…

Best of 2025: Why gangland figure Tony Mokbel could walk free 

Today we’re heading back to a court in Melbourne with crime writer Chris Vedelago. It was the day when one of the last remaining figures from the city’s gangland war, Tony Mokbel, was released on bail thanks to a legal scandal like no other.  Mokbel had convictions quashed over the so-called ‘Lawy…

Best of 2025: The rallies, the neo-Nazis, the flag-draping: How politics on immigration have led to this point

Happy New Year. We’re on a break over summer - lucky us - before we return at the end of January for another year of Inside Politics. Today, we’re returning to an episode recorded in the wake of the divisive ‘March for Australia’ protests, which became the vehicle for a hodgepodge of causes, incl…

Best of 2025: Chifley, Hawke, Rudd. Albanese beat them all. But what’s next? 

Remember how there was a federal election? In this episode, we return to Anthony Albanese's astonishing landslide victory in May with former chief political correspondent David Crowe and senior economics correspondent Shane Wright. Crowe and Wright reflect on how history-making the win was, and w…

Best of 2025:  How a dancing Robert Irwin became America’s antidote

Today, we return to a good news story as we kick off a new year. The fame of Robert Irwin, the son of ‘crocodile hunter’ Steve Irwin, was supercharged recently when he won one of America's top reality television shows, Dancing with the Stars. Our culture editor-at-large Michael Idato delves into t…

Best of 2025: The lawyer (and author) who represented Palestine in international court

As we say goodbye to 2025, we can only hope we also see an end to the swirling chaos of multiple wars that raged across the world, and in the case of the Israel-Gaza conflict, fractured so much of our society. Today we return to a special episode with British barrister and human rights lawyer Phil…

Best of 2025: The tobacco tax causing carnage in our streets

A tax on tobacco seemed like a great idea to deter smokers and raise revenue.  But, as the price of cigarettes soared, major criminal organisations saw an opening, and began to pump cheap, illegal cigarettes into Australia.  And violence came along with it as warring gangs fought for control of t…